On the one hand, I’m grateful to Leslie Gelb, a gray eminence of the establishment, for his angry attack on the neoconservatives as warmongerers in the Daily Beast. It will help to defang the neocons and forestall an attack on Iran.
Yet as critics pointed out last week, Gelb fully supported the neocons’ last venture, the Iraq war– later offering a lame careerist mea culpa: “My initial support for the war was symptomatic of unfortunate tendencies within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to retain political and professional credibility.” (Just imagine yourself, at 66, completely connected– and not having the spine to oppose a stupid war because of careerism.) And as others pointed out, Gelb brought Max Boot in to the Council on Foreign Relations– “giving perhaps the most fervid neocon around the CFR stamp of approval.”
Last night I reread Gelb’s 2007 attack on Walt and Mearsheimer’s book The Israel Lobby on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. The piece was called “Dual Loyalties,” and sought to paint Walt and Mearsheimer as unconscious anti-Semites.
I picked out several analytical passages in the piece that have been proved dead wrong in the passage of four years. 1:
As for the American government, the record clearly shows that when Israel crosses certain important lines, as when it expanded Jewish settlements into Palestinian areas like the West Bank and Gaza, Washington usually expresses its displeasure in public and, even more so, in private. Mearsheimer and Walt just don’t mention that….
Israel has defied the White House again and again on settlements. Nothing happens– except Israel colonizes more land. 2:
And on the policy issue that has counted most to Israel and the lobby — preventing the United States from accepting a Palestinian state prior to a negotiated deal between Israel and the Palestinians — it’s fair to say Washington has quietly sided with the Palestinians for a long time. Every administration since 1967, when Israel won a war and occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, has privately favored returning almost all of that territory to the Palestinians for the purposes of creating a separate Palestinian state. President George W. Bush finally said this publicly in 2001, but Israeli leaders and lobbyists who weren’t in total denial knew the unspoken reality all along. If the lobby and Israel called the shots the way Mearsheimer and Walt and so many other Middle East experts insist, the United States would… never would have leaned in private toward a Palestinian state….
Do I really need to do the math here? The Obama administration has been doing everything it can to block the Palestinian statehood initiative at the U.N., destroying any goodwill we have in the Arab world. 3:
To be sure, Washington’s ties with Israel make things harder for United States policy, but historically, the prime effect of the relationship has been to provide Arab leaders and discontented Arabs with an excuse for not putting their own houses in order. I doubt Mearsheimer and Walt believe that if Washington stiff-armed Israel, this would induce Arab leaders to address their real problems or produce peace in the Middle East….
America’s central strategic problem in the region — the main reason to worry about future terrorists, nuclear proliferation and energy supplies — is that we need our corrupt, inept and unpopular Arab allies because the likely alternative to them is far worse….
Wait a second: now those leaders are gone. Or halfway gone. We’ve supported their removal. But American policy toward the Palestinian human rights and aspirations is as bad as ever. So was our support for the Arab leaders really the “central strategic” issue for us in the region? No.
4. And this Iran analysis:
Mearsheimer and Walt fear that Israel and the lobby will shove the United States into a new war with Iran: “They are the central forces today behind all the talk … about using military force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Unfortunately, such rhetoric makes it harder, not easier, to stop Iran from going nuclear.”
They are right again about why the United States should not be making counterproductive threats about war against Iran, let alone fighting another war. But they are wrong again about the prime movers behind the bombast. Wolfowitz and Perle and company surely favor another nice little war, but they are temporarily discredited. Meanwhile, plenty of foreign policy experts and politicians now call for “getting Iran.” And by the way, so do the two most powerful men in America, who neither need nor heed lobbying — George Bush and Dick Cheney.
But Gelb contradicts Gelb here. In his piece last week for the Daily Beast, he clearly identifies the warmongerers: the neocons. The same crowd that pushed for the Iraq war is now pushing an Iran war.
These mistakes just go to show that centrist Establishment types like Gelb are astute at one analytical art: knowing which way the wind is blowing. Happily, it’s blowing into the neocons’ faces now…
Great article Phil.
Anyone who has written
“it’s fair to say Washington has quietly sided with the Palestinians for a long time.”
Without being comedic…can’t ever be rehabilitated IMO.
He isn’t going out any great limb criticizing the neo-cons today. A mea culpa to Mearsheimer would be progress, but this…eh. Whatever Leslie. Whatever.
Gelb “They are right again about why the United States should not be making counterproductive threats about war against Iran, let alone fighting another war. But they are wrong again about the prime movers behind the bombast. Wolfowitz and Perle and company surely favor another nice little war, but they are temporarily discredited. Meanwhile, plenty of foreign policy experts and politicians now call for “getting Iran.” And by the way, so do the two most powerful men in America, who neither need nor heed lobbying — George Bush and Dick Cheney.”
Let’s hope Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney etc etc and more than “temporarily discredited” They are all drowning in the blood of the Iraqi people…they deserve to be in prison. The MSM is starting to recycle Wolfowitz a bit. Feith with the Perry campaign. Cheney lurking all of the time
“It will help to defang the neocons and forestall an attack on Iran.”
“forestall” Sounds like you think an attack on Iran is imminent.
This morning on the Diane Rehm show they had warmonger Micheal Rubin on to discuss Iran, Syria. Phyllis Bennis was incredible. Consistent honorable stances
Gleb is a bullshitter, always has been….as Phil says which ever way the wind blows.
No matter how “reasonable” a Israel Firster sounds or tries to sound we know what the bottom line is for them when push comes to shove…Israel first at any cost.
A sample question for the Gelbs:
Why do US Jews favor and demand separation of church and state in the US because they believe it is good for Jews and not demand it in Israel?
Why do Jews claim credit for civil rights in the US and yet approve of denial of rights to Arabs in Israel and Palestines?
Yea, that’s a dumb question but it’s my set up for asking…Is there any line US Pro Israel Jews would not cross in what they consider good for the Jews or good for Israel?
If so, where would they draw the line?
I don’t want an answer from zionist like eee and Hop, I want an answer from the in- between Jews who just support Israel in general terms.
I really want to know. What line could Israel cross that would make them renounce and disavow Israel?
“at 66, completely connected– and not having the spine to oppose a stupid war because of careerism.” MAYBE he was reluctant to stop receiving invitations to those nice dinners. It takes a kind of guts to stand up for what is right when all your pals, your career-pals, your social-pals, appear to be in lock-step to do the wrong thing.
I have a persistent fantasy: That large numbers of people, a MAJORITY, including well-placed politicians and well-placed people of all religions are secretly pro-human-rights, secretly pro-Palestine, but DARE NOT SAY SO because they are persuaded that their social-cohort are opposed — EVEN THOUGH the question of attitude within the cohort CANNOT BE ASKED because to ASK is to violate the CENSORSHIP.
WHO DARES TO BE FIRST TO SAY THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES? Even when every person perceives it!